Performance of Caesalpinia sappan heartwood extract as photo sensitizer for dye sensitized solar cells

•Caesalpinia sappan heartwood extract as new dye sensitizer for DSSC.•Brazilin and brazilein are the major pigments.•Optimized molecular structure was calculated.•HOMO–LUMO were studied.•Efficiency is 1.1% for natural dye sensitized DSSC.

A natural dye extracted from Caesalpinia sappan heartwood was used as photo sensitizer for the first time to fabricate titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles based dye sensitized solar cells. Brazilin and brazilein are the major pigments present in the natural dye and their optimized molecular structure were calculated using Density functional theory (DFT) at 6-31G (d) level. The HOMO–LUMO were performed to reveal the energy gap using optimized structure. Pure TiO2 nanoparticles in anatase phase were synthesized by sol–gel technique. The pure and natural dye sensitized TiO2 nanoparticles were subjected to structural, optical, spectral and morphological studies. Low cost and environment friendly dye sensitized solar cells were fabricated using natural dye sensitized TiO2 based photo anode. The solar light to electron conversion efficiency of Caesalpinia sappan heartwood extract sensitized dye sensitized solar cell is 1.1%.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide